The modern cocktail has come to be so complex a beverage that people never know beforehand what they are going to take into their stomachs as they pass from bar to bar... Okay, we plagiarized that from something playwright Leander Richardson wrote in 1886. His strategy? Get an old-fashioned. Smart then. Smart now. Anybody working in a modern cocktail bar should be able to twist you up a fine old-fashioned, and the order will mark you as someone who knows how to drink. But sometimes you get tired of meat and potatoes. Should you decide to brave the cocktail list, we've drawn up a sample menu, cobbled together from actual drinks served in a few of our favorite cocktail bars, along with some navigational pointers.

A. Expect to pay something like this for a quality cocktail, except in Manhattan. B. Don't expect strict fidelity to the historical source. C. If a brand is specified, it's probably one you've never heard of. D. Unless it's explicitly identified as a grappa or a wine, any ingredient that sounds Italian will either be low-proof, sweet, and bitter or high-proof, sweet, and even more bitter. E. Ingredients tend to be listed in this order: main spirit, modifying spirit or wine (vermouths and such), citrus or other juice, sugar, liqueurs used as accents, bitters, garnish. F. The couple dashes of bitters in the drink won't make it taste bitter; they're there to help the other flavors blend. G. Tiki = tropical kitsch. Expect rum. H. Bartenders rarely get credited for their creations. That's changing. I. Shrub is an ancient, and superior, ancestor of sour mix, often with a little booze already included. J. No, not even at these prices are you likely to get real champagne. K. Not every low-proof, sweet, and bitter ingredient is Italian. L. Not every high-proof, sweet, and bitter Italian liqueur sounds Italian. M. Drinks with citrus juice may be a bit tart, but they will also have a lot of sugar in them. N. A swizzle is a tall drink whirled up in the glass with crushed ice by spinning a branched stick in it. Other archaic classes of drinks you might encounter: smashes (shaken with mint), flips (shaken with a whole raw egg). O. Falernum is a slightly alcoholic spiced syrup from Barbados. Orgeat is an almond syrup. Both are often found in Tiki drinks. P. This one takes the prize for cryptic menu writing. By eyeballing it, you can deduce that the "Rain" is the base spirit and that the drink will be an herbal, spicy sour. By calling up the bar that serves it, you can also learn that it was created by Tom Schlesinger-Guidelli, that the "Rain" is a brand of organic vodka, and that the sage and juniper are infused into a simple or sugar syrup. By ordering it, you can learn that it's delicious.